Handbook Archive

The Nyctomancer’s Handbook This installment of the Spheres of Power-expansions clocks in at 34 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 29 pages of content, so let’s take a look! Okay, as always, we begin with a nice piece of prose before we get a summary of how to use this expansion for the Dark sphere – perhaps one of the “less sexy” spheres and one of the more difficult to write and expand upon, so how this fares is rather interesting to me. The first chapter starts off with the new archetypes, the first of which would be the darkshaper, who gets a […]

The Battlemage’s Handbook This expansion-book for the Spheres of Power-system clocks in at 45 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 40 pages of content, so let’s take a look! After a nice bit of introductory prose and some notes on how to use this book, we begin with the new class options presented, the first of which would be the combat engineer alchemist, who replaces alchemy with being an Int-based Mid-Caster and a spell pool of his level + int-mod, with each level granting a magic talent and War sphere as a bonus sphere at first level. The archetype gains alchemical engineering, which focuses […]

The Shapeshifter’s Handbook This installment of the Spheres of Power-expansion handbooks clocks in at 42 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 37 pages of content, so let’s take a look! After a brief introduction to the matter at hand, we begin with a new Monk archetype (compatible with unchained monks as well), the Beastsoul Monk, who gains Transformation instead of the usual level 1 bonus feat. (This would btw. be a feat that nets you access to a no-spell point cost alternate form). Starting at 2nd level, Hybrid Transformation and Improved Transformation are added to the bonus feats available. Transformation may be chosen multiple […]

Skill Challenge Handbook This handbook clocks in at 79 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of SRD, 3 pages of advertisements, leaving us with 71 pages of content, so let’s check this out! This book was moved up in my reviewing-queue as a prioritized review at the request of my patreons. It is no secret that I never liked D&D 4th edition. I tried the game and I’m not trying to discredit it or its playstyle – it just wasn’t what I considered to be enjoyable and in contrast to PFRPG and 5e, it didn’t let me tell the stories I wanted to tell. That […]

Veranthea Codex: Adventurer’s Handbook This massive compilation of player-centric material for Veranthea clocks in at 197 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial,1 page ToC, 1 page of SRD, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 190 pages of content, so let’s take a look! Okay, so we begin this book with a brief timeline and introduction to the setting of Veranthea and its distinct continents, with detailed (and really nice!) 1-page maps of the continents in question. The pdf explains the continents and leitmotifs in a concise and player-friendly manner, including the information on the Forever Dark, the collector cabal and a basic outline of the tesseract called the Veil – though here […]

The Illuminator’s Handbook This installment of the Spheres of Power-expansions-series clocks in at 24 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1/2 a page blank, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 19.5 pages of content, so let’s take a look! After a brief introduction and explanation on how to use this book, we move on to new class options, the first of which would be the astrology hedgewitch tradition, which nets Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (planes) and Perception as class skills and the Light sphere as a bonus magic talent. As a tradition power, these gals may project a so-called celestial aura as a swift action, which affects all allies (including the hedgewitch) within 30 […]

The Enhancer’s Handbook This installment of Drop Dead Studios’ expansion-books for Spheres of Power clocks in at 28 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 23 pages of content, so let’s take a look! All right, after some introductory prose and advice on navigating this book, we begin with a selection of archetypes, the first of which would be the Herculean Scion for the mageknight, who replaces 1st level’s magic talent with a domain power of a domain of her choice, with 2nd level increasing the CL to class level for enhancements that target the scion – in short: Full CL-self-buffs. 7th level replaces marked […]

The Diviner’s Handbook This installment of the expansion-series for Spheres of Power clocks in at 34 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 29 pages of content, so let’s take a look! We begin this expansion of the Spheres of Power-rules, as has become the tradition herein, with a nice piece of introductory prose before tackling new archetypes, the first of which would be the psyforensic, who gains a magic talent whenever he would gain a caster level and the divination sphere at first level; at 3rd level, the archetype may spend an hour to conduct the autopsy ritual, an absolutely amazing new ritual that […]

The Destroyer’s Handbook This installment of Drop Dead Studios’ Spheres of Power-expansions clocks in at 40 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page of back cover, leaving us with 35 pages of content, so let’s take a look! After the introductory prose, we dive right into the archetype-section of the book, with the first being the Admixture Savant elementalist, who gets a modified skill-list, casts via Int and gains an admixture pool instead of evasion and the dodge bonus at 2nd level. These points may be expended to either remove the increase of casting time of the Admixture talent or reduce the spell point expenditure of metamagic feats by 1 point per […]

The Telekinetic’s Handbook The second of Drop Dead Studios’ patreon-powered Spheres of Power–expansion books clocks in at 28 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page TOC, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 24 pages of content, so let’s take a look! Well, but let’s begin this analysis not from the beginning, but rather the end: telekinesis was one of the components in Spheres of Power that was awesome, but not necessarily perfect: Hence, this book provides needed clarification in its 7th chapter: Items held via telekinesis are considered to be attended or held and multiple telekinetic grapples are covered and the bludgeon-option of telekinesis is similarly clarified, eliminating all the small issues, including proficiency-questions and damage […]

The Dracula Dossier: Director’s Handbook This massive hardcover clocks in at 372 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 2 pages of editorial/backer-lists, 4 pages detailed ToC, 1 page inside of back cover, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 362 (!!!) pages of raw content, so let’s take a look! This book was moved up in my review-queue due to me receiving a print copy in exchange for a critical, unbiased review. So, what is this book? Well, first of all, this is the companion tome to the Dracula Unredacted-tome, which is perhaps the most detailed, massive handout ever crafted for a roleplaying game. I’d like to urge you to read my review […]

The Flavour Handbook This massive book clocks in at 96 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial,2 pages of SRD, 1 page ToC, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 89 pages of content, so let’s take a look! This review was moved forward in my reviewing queue as a prioritized review at the request of my patreons. This pdf does not waste any time, beginning almost immediately by depicting a new base class for your perusal, which, what else could it be, would be the chef. The chef base class, chassis-wise, gets d8 HD, 6+Int skills per level, 3/4 BAB-progression, good Fort- and Ref-saves as well as proficiency with simple […]

The Geomancer’s Handbook The first sphere-specific expansion book for Drop Dead Studios’ excellent Spheres of Power-system clocks in at 30 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 26 pages of content, so let’s take a look! After an aptly-written piece of introductory prose, we dive into the sphere magic here, which begins with the option-array for metal geomancing via the nature sphere, allowing the spherecaster to draw forth metal from the ground and featuring a rather neatly-detailed table. Have I mentioned that this has the options to magnetize metal and throw it, with maximum item-size influenced and governed by level? On a more critical side (haha) – per concentration, […]

Alterkine Player’s Handbook (D20 Modern/Future) This huge tome clocks in at 382 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page ToC, 1 page “thank you,” a massive 10-page index (which helps navigation immensely) and 1 page back cover, leaving us with a gigantic 365 pages of content, so let’s take a look! So what is Alterkine? The simple tl;dr-answer for those of you particularly time-starved individuals would be that Alterkine represents basically a riff/expansion on d20 modern/future-rules. If you require more precise guidance, let me enlighten you: Intended as a core-book, this massive book is pretty newbie-friendly, providing explanation on multiplication handling, dice-notation and the like in […]

Dragon Companion Handbook This pdf clocks in at 32 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 33 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we? So, this is another pdf that puts dragons in the hands of players. My dislike for this very concept is by now probably widely known, so rest assured that I am not a fan of the very concept this book is based. My first thought here was simply that I did not want to do the vast amounts of math – but hey, I guess I’m pretty much a pro regarding reviews, so I swallowed my own inclinations like a man and opened the pdf. […]

NeoExodus Chronicles: The Quartermaster’s Handbook This pdf is 27 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 25 pages of content, so let’s take a look! As an equipment book, we kick off with the section on mundane equipment and honestly, many of them had me wonder why the items had not been covered before – take for example the two versions of ball and chain we get in here or the tracing paper. Among the items, we also get some anachronisms like razor wire, which, while personally I like the idea, will probably not fit in with every setting. The Field Medic Kit deserves special mention, as it allows for the non-magical removal of […]

Sometimes, I’m not that happy with the vancian system. I like it, I really do, but sometimes, for some worlds and modules, I wished for an alternative. Well, there now is one, and Super Genius Games bring honor to their name with Houserule Handbook: Spellpoints This pdf is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 22 pages of content, so let’s check this out! After a short discussion on the discrepancy between the vancian spellcasting system and the convention of magic-use in literature, we are introduced to a system that is radically different and more in line with literary depictions of magic – a system of spell points. While the idea per […]